UB’s Holly Jean Buck named MacArthur Fellow

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The MacArthur Foundation has selected Holly Jean Buck, a University at Buffalo expert on the social and political dimensions of climate and energy technologies, as one of its 2026 MacArthur Fellows.

Known as “genius grants,” MacArthur Fellowships are $800,000 awards given to exceptionally creative individuals in recognition of their accomplishments and potential for future work. The five-year fellowships allow recipients to pursue their work with complete freedom over how the funds are used.

According to the foundation, “Buck is setting forth a compelling vision for what is needed to launch a successful energy and climate transition and to support rural innovation, while remaining attentive to social realities and justice.”

“I’m incredibly honored by this recognition and to be included among this group of inspiring 2026 Fellows,” says Buck, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Environment and Sustainability in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. “The award gives me the opportunity to continue pursuing big questions about how we make the climate and energy transition work for people and communities.” 

“Dr. Buck’s MacArthur Fellowship is a remarkable recognition of the depth and importance of her work,” says UB President Caroline Genco, PhD. “Her research brings a vital social and human perspective to some of the most consequential challenges facing our world, and her ability to connect rigorous scholarship with the needs of communities makes her work especially meaningful. We are enormously proud to have Holly Jean Buck as a member of the UB community.”

An interdisciplinary social scientist, Buck studies how the transition to clean energy can be accelerated and how communities engage with emerging technologies. Her work envisions governance structures for a wide range of climate responses, from rural place-based efforts in natural resource management and clean energy to global-scale climate interventions, like solar radiation modification and carbon removal. 

“Holly Jean Buck has established herself as an important voice on some of the most complex questions surrounding climate and energy,” says A. Scott Weber, UB provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “Her ability to bring together perspectives from the social sciences, environmental studies and other fields has made her scholarship particularly valuable. This MacArthur Fellowship is a wonderful recognition of her contributions and the promise of her ongoing work.”

Buck has published extensively on the politics of climate technologies. Her 2019 book, “After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration,” combines empirical research and speculative fiction to explore possible pathways to using and managing geoengineering technologies. It argues that within democratic frameworks, technologies like carbon removal could be designed to benefit both global climate and local communities. 

Buck expands on this work in “Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough,” published in 2021, where she contends that building out clean energy infrastructure must be coupled with equitable processes for winding down fossil fuel use. The book proposes treating climate technologies such as carbon removal as public utilities, developing democratic planning mechanisms to determine timelines for decarbonization, transitioning the fossil fuel industry infrastructure and personnel to work on carbon removal and building social buy-in to shift energy sources. 

“This honor recognizes Professor Buck as a leading authority on climate change and energy systems and celebrates the extraordinary impact of her work,” says Jeff Grabill, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Her scholarship shapes conversations and solutions for some of the world's most urgent sustainability issues. We congratulate Holly on this remarkable achievement. She is a courageous voice who is answering our most pressing questions.”

Buck’s more recent work focuses on how different regions perceive green industrial development, providing insights into barriers to and opportunities for building social support for clean energy and manufacturing. 

Her current research includes reindustrialization in rural communities that are taking an active role in shaping emerging industries, from semiconductors and batteries to the use of artificial intelligence in agriculture. The work explores how innovation can be aligned with local needs and resources.

Buck is currently working as a coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Seventh Assessment Report, which will assess progress and options for mitigating climate change and be released by late 2029. 

Her research has been published in Nature Climate Change, Climatic Change and Environmental Research Letters, among other journals. She is frequently quoted in the news media as an expert source, including in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, CNN and USA Today.

Prior to joining UB in 2020, Buck was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at University of California, Los Angeles. She received her PhD in development sociology from Cornell University, an MSc in human ecology from Lund University and a BA from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.